Wonders you never build

kaspergm said:

I think people would value Angkor Wat more if they played more with Liberty and less with Tradition. The tile acquiring bonus from Tradition is huge, and when I play Liberty, I frequently find myself spending a lot of gold on buying tiles, so actually I think Angkor Wat can be pretty useful. But then again, I play with a mod that both adds extra bonus to Angkor Wat (free Pagoda in city) as well as makes Liberty and wide gameplay in general more viable, so I fully understand why people don't use it much in normal game. I also use WHoward's mod that decouples great engineers, scientists and merchants, which makes GE (and GM) points much more worthwhile.

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I almost always play liberty, but first I open tradition in a way I think of that as part of liberty as it's important to get your cities expanding early. But by Angor Wat hopefully you'll have gold to buy what you need anyway and if you don't there are probably things you should be doing to get your gpt up rather than building Angor Wat, AW gives you a specific discount, gpt lets you buy lots of things you may need not just land.

Mods are another story you could make any great wonder worthwhile with the right mod.

America, Russia or liberty raises the value of Angkor Wat and I would build if you have a reasonable chance of getting it and there isn't another wonder of much higher value at the time. You can just buy universities if you're concerned that is higher priority.

Sclb said:

America, Russia or liberty raises the value of Angkor Wat and I would build if you have a reasonable chance of getting it and there isn't another wonder of much higher value at the time. You can just buy universities if you're concerned that is higher priority.

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Venice too. Puppet state borders don't really seem to do much expanding without it.

If you are interested in the natural border growth due to culture, Sistine Chapel is a much better wonder: it's easier to get if you research acoustics right after education (this also has the benefit of putting you into renaissance for opening rationalism faster), and will help with social policies.

darkskies said:

I almost always play liberty, but first I open tradition in a way I think of that as part of liberty as it's important to get your cities expanding early.

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But that's exactly my point: You can't judge Angkor Wat completely within a frame where you also open Tradition - essentially, what Angkor Wat does is that it lets you bypass opening Tradition. Now of course this brings up the relevant point that typically you'll open Tradition in early ancient era and you won't be able to build Angkor Wat until sometime during medieval era, so maybe the point is not so much (or not only) that Angkor Wat is underpowered but also that it comes too late for the benefit that it provides.

I'm not making a case for Angkor Wat being a top wonder, but I do think it's better than people give it credit for, simply because most people have a habit of always opening Tradition which essentially renders this wonder unnecessary. Of course, that still means it qualifies for a "wonder you never build", but in terms of balance, I still hold my case that it's not just a case of Angkor Wat being underpowered, but also Tradition (opener) being overpowered.

Even on lower difficulties GS>GE because GS can give you the tech lead and allow you to hard build the wonders, and you'll be a era or two ahead.

And on higher difficulties you can still get plenty of wonders, it's just that the early wonders are actually contested by the AI.

kaspergm said:

But that's exactly my point: You can't judge Angkor Wat completely within a frame where you also open Tradition - essentially, what Angkor Wat does is that it lets you bypass opening Tradition. Now of course this brings up the relevant point that typically you'll open Tradition in early ancient era and you won't be able to build Angkor Wat until sometime during medieval era, so maybe the point is not so much (or not only) that Angkor Wat is underpowered but also that it comes too late for the benefit that it provides.

I'm not making a case for Angkor Wat being a top wonder, but I do think it's better than people give it credit for, simply because most people have a habit of always opening Tradition which essentially renders this wonder unnecessary. Of course, that still means it qualifies for a "wonder you never build", but in terms of balance, I still hold my case that it's not just a case of Angkor Wat being underpowered, but also Tradition (opener) being overpowered.

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The main thing I think is we agree that Angkor Wat is too late (in most games). Rarely do I buy tiles once I'm out of the ancient era anyway maybe I'm just good at placing my cities near (or on) what I need most (mainly if I buy a tile it will be to discourage the AI from settling too close to something I eventually want). I do remember one game some time ago where I did actually build Angkor Wat because all the resources I needed were awkwardly placed and I wanted my cities on rivers which meant they were all three tiles away from the resources, that's the only time I can remember building AW in the last few years. I actually like to see the AI build it so I know they weren't building as many military units.

Interesting discussion. There are times when I'm tempted to play at a lower level just so I can play with all the wonders like I did years ago, but the AI is just way too easy to steamroll at those levels.

Off topic: why do are the still wearing Santa hats? Are they cold?

I've built Angkor Wat in the late game when I had a city in need of a wonder (any wonder), because it's cheap. On rare occasions it can be useful to gain access to a resource in ring 4 or 5.

Primacide said:

Red fort: why on earth would I waste mid game hammers on a buff to city defenses... which I then also have to build? If my game-winning strategy is to beat the AI against my cities, I've got a serious problem.

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Really? I like turtling and this wonder makes cities super tanky.

I have to admit. I rarely ever build Walls. Let alone Red Fort. I think I've built Walls in one city in my last 4 games. Castle? What's a Castle? I guess that means I never build Nauchweaustein (or however you spell it) too.

You'll feel the need to build walls when you move up to higher difficulty. It's usually what makes the difference between losing a city to AI or not. Neuschwanstein gives a lot of happiness if you have castles and is very useful if you drag out a domination game to modern era. Especially the final stages of HCA meaning you also take fortified borders from autocracy for massive bonus to castle happiness.

Neuchwanstein is an amazing wonder.

sixty4half said:

I have to admit. I rarely ever build Walls. Let alone Red Fort. I think I've built Walls in one city in my last 4 games. Castle? What's a Castle? I guess that means I never build Nauchweaustein (or however you spell it) too.

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Neuschwanstein is a great wonder if you are under a lot of ideology pressure. You get +1 happiness, gold and culture in every city with a castle and plenty more of that in the city that builds it. While it is useful for any civ it does add value if you're overextended and have a lot of unhappy cities (or if you are going late game conquest)

Redaxe said:

Neuschwanstein is a great wonder if you are under a lot of ideology pressure. You get +1 happiness, gold and culture in every city with a castle and plenty more of that in the city that builds it. While it is useful for any civ it does add value if you're overextended and have a lot of unhappy cities (or if you are going late game conquest)

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Amazing wonder really, but it gives 3 2 1 per castle and the wonder give double that plus castle in the city.

Even on lower difficulties GS>GE because GS can give you the tech lead and allow you to hard build the wonders, and you'll be a era or two ahead.

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I'll have to disagree here, plenty of early wonders can make up for Leonardo Da Vinci, for instance Petra a city that would normally be Trash becomes possibly even better than the cap, how do you build it? Nicola Tesla of course.
plus Jungle start building that manufactory could mean the difference and a little more science isn't going to be that important in said situation, there are also other wonder maybe a religious wonder or Chichen Itza and maybe even Alhambra. again its just your desired VC and start location can make Alexandre Gustav Eiffel a better choice

The only time I consider Ankor Wat good is when playing America. It's been a long time since I tried it, but if I recall correctly, the bonus discount for buying tiles stacks. If I remember right, the total would be a 75% discount.

Why is that good? Well, because it's a discount that trails upward toward 100%. America's 50% bonus discount means tiles cost 50% less (obviously). However, when you add Wat's additional 25% discount on top of that, Wat's effective discount is an additional 50%. (For other civs the effective value is just what it says on the tin, 25%.)

In other words, while Ankor Wat cuts the price of a tile for most civs by only 25%, for America it cuts it by 50%.

Here's what the number mean for a tile that cost 100 gold:

Non-America w/o Wat - 100 gp
Non-America w/ Wat - 75gp (25% less than original)

America w/o Wat - 50gp
America w/Wat - 25gp (75% less than base, 50% less than w/o Wat)

Basically America with Ankor Wat can pull some unusual stunts with tile purchasing other civs can't afford to. My guess is this works better in single player, where you can use tile purchasing to effectively wall of civs or snake your way to resources.

But by the point you build it you have most of your cities settled. So it's a huge bonus that comes too late.


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Aea said:

But by the point you build it you have most of your cities settled. So it's a huge bonus that comes too late.

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But again, that's only true because the most common game approach (and admittedly, overall game balance in general) strongly disfavors late game settling. While I fully admit that this effectively does render Angkor Wat useless as things stand, that's not only because Angkor Wat is poorly balanced, but also because Tradition, national wonder mechanism and tall-vs-wide in general are poorly balanced, creating a heavy skew against late settling.

By and large Ankor wat is a boring wonder - it doesn't really have any wow factor to it

Redaxe said:

By and large Ankor wat is a boring wonder - it doesn't really have any wow factor to it

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Not like the Temple of Artemis, is anyone going to get this back on track I know I cant.

Edit: did I mention the Temple of Artemis and how great it is?

If I have the opportunity to build any Wonder I typically will, many times it just depends how long one stays on the board for. I typically play on Emperor because for me it is kind of the sweet spot in difficulty where I can have some challenge and some fun (I've beaten the game on Deity, but it wasn't much fun). So most times I can grab a few wonders at the very least, though I'm playing a Poland game right now where I have almost all the wonders.

I like a few Wonders that other people don't. Great Lighthouse is one of them, I like to play as Venice a lot and it can give my Great Galleass that extra little bump to turn them from lumbering behemoths into a nimble strike force, and help me potentially meet more civs first to establish the world congress.

I'm not a big fan Uffizi, the Louvre, Great Wall or really most of the military Wonders. Taj Mahal is another one that just doesn't seem all that Wonderful for me considering the other buildings that get unlocked with it. Great Library is almost never easy to get, rarely ever build it. Alhambra and Angkor Wat are almost always gone and never worth the effort. Statue of Zeus, Pyramids and Great Mosque I never get because I almost never use those trees.

My main targets are typically Hanging Gardens, Sistine Chapel, Big Ben (again, I'm a big Venice fan and this makes puppets much cheaper to manage), Ivory Tower and Statue of Liberty. If I can get those I'm a happy guy.